By Lisa Trowbridge, Staff Writer
In the past couple years, the number of applicants to Miami has increased by about 10 percent. Last year, this led to an unexpectedly high number of students enrolling and resulted in a housing shortage. Now, the office of admissions hopes to meet their incoming class size goal by becoming more selective in the future years.
Susan Schaurer, assistant vice president for enrollment management and director for admission, said Miami's goal was for 28,000 applicants, and, as of last Monday, there were 29,763 applicants.
"The interest has exceeded the number of available spots, so we've become more selective in past years, but we've been very fortunate in the applicant pool that we've been receiving." Schaurer said.
In order to determine how many of the roughly 30,000 students to accept, the Office of Admissions has to predict the behaviors of these incoming first-years, said Schaurer
Schaurer said admissions decisions aren't strongly influenced by housing, but availability does play a small role in determining the size of the incoming class.
"We've partnered closely with housing to determine how large of a class we can enroll, and there's adequate room for about 3,650," said Schaurer.
High school senior Casey Funkle from Cleveland, Ohio is one of the accepted applicants for Miami's class of 2020. She said that, while only about half of her friends were accepted, she wasn't worried about getting admitted.
"Miami was actually my safety school," Funkle said.
Of those who were rejected, Funkle said their grades and test scores simply didn't seem to measure up to those of her friends and classmates who were accepted.
Schaurer said the applicant pool this year has overall higher test scores and GPAs than in previous years. Miami has been increasingly proactive in recruitment efforts, and has reached out to prospective students all over the United States and even globally.
"In recent years, we've made great strides to communicate to prospective students and families the value of a Miami education, and we've worked diligently over the past five years to recruit students and make them know about the Miami experience," Schaurer said.
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These efforts have paid off, and Miami hopes to continue to reach out to more and more students. Schaurer said they hope that by making Miami more well-known, the university will be able to reach more qualified and well-rounded students.
The goal number of students who enroll is 3,650, so if this trend of high applicant numbers continues, Miami will continue to become more selective. Ultimately, Schaurer said, it is important to maintain that number in order to provide students with the best experience possible.
"It lends itself for students having a dynamic academic and co-curricular experience here at Miami," Schaurer said.
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